


Nothing to Live For

by youlllearntolovehowtodream



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Episode: s03e04 Nasty Habits, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 05:07:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1102772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youlllearntolovehowtodream/pseuds/youlllearntolovehowtodream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a continuation of the scene in 3x04 "Nasty Habits" when Rumple paints his face and talks with his vision of Belle. Rumple tells her that he has nothing to live for, and she tries to convince him otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing to Live For

He sits with his hands in his lap, looking down at the ground in front of him. “Things are different now.” 

She tilts her head, curious, wondering how much of his dark past he has still kept from her. “How? What’s different?” 

“Because I have nothing to live for,” he says simply, his eyes hardening, and to keep himself from crying he focuses on the dirt in front of him, trying to count the number of rocks at his feet. 

She puts a hand on one of his, laughing slightly at what she thinks is melodramatics. “What about me?” 

“You’re not real,” he whispers, looking at her, eyes squinting with disappointment. “Just a vision.” 

She’s confused now, her eyebrows knitting together, because she knows that she’s just a vision. But she also knows that _he_ knows that the person she is a vision of is real. “But I’m-I’m back in Storybrooke waiting for you.” 

He leans in closer to her, as if by sheer proximity he’s hoping that he can make her understand him. “You shouldn’t be. When I said goodbye to you, Belle, we both know it was for good.” He stands up, turning away from her. 

“Well maybe I think you’ll come back,” she says indignantly. Doesn’t he know by now that she’ll never give up on him? She hated how he sometimes treated her like a child, like she was incapable of making her own choices, like she was naïve in her loving him. She knows him better than he thinks; he always seems to forget that she had lived with him for months in his Dark Castle. She was no stranger to his dark side, and she was also not put off by it. She had fallen in love with him when that was the only side he intentionally showed her, had fallen in love when she saw him torture and kill for vengeance, had fallen in love even when he had cast her out. 

He’s wary now; she can tell he’s rolling his eyes, even with his back to her. “Even if I did, eventually you’d leave me because you can see me for what I really am.” He turns to face her. “You think you see a good man, but in time, you’d see the monster. My son is dead, the only way I can redeem myself is by saving his son, and giving my life.” 

She doesn’t say anything for a moment, stunned. She's overcome by a wave of sadness, her heart sinking in her chest. They had been through this before. After they had kissed for the first time, he had said that no one could ever love him. And she had tried to reassure him that she _could_ love him, could want him. He hadn’t believed it then, but she had thought that after their reunion in Storybrooke he had learned to. She puts both hands on the log she’s sitting on, as if bracing herself for his reaction, and raising her head to look at him, says, “I didn’t know you still felt that way.” 

Now he’s the one that’s stunned. He had expected her to argue, the same thing that he always heard from her, _I’ll never leave you, Rumple. I’ll fight for you._ He never truly listened, letting her words float in his ears. He had been left alone, abandoned, in every relationship he had ever had. He didn’t know what to say to her, didn’t know how to tell her that she wouldn’t be any different, because how could she be, how could she love him when everyone else couldn't, flickering his eyes between her face and the ground at her feet. But she knew that flicker was an answer, a _yes, well, I still do._  

She stands up and walks over to him, hands reaching out to touch his face in desperation. “I don’t know what else I can do to make you trust me.” She didn’t say it in defeat, but rather in helplessness, because she so badly wanted to fix him, to save him from himself. 

He remains immobile underneath her touch, his shoulders lifting in a shrug, because he didn’t know either.

"I'm not Mila, Rumple," she said bluntly. "The only times I've ever left you are when you've told me to go. I don't _want_ to live without you."

He looks up at her conflicted, overstimulated by everything she's saying, and she pulls him in to her, his head resting against her neck, and she can feel his back rise and fall with broken sobs against her hands. He holds on to her, clutching at the folds in her dress, like she's anchoring him to the ground and letting go would mean becoming irrevocably lost. 

**Author's Note:**

> So I don't really like the ending but I didn't really know what else to do so there's that.


End file.
